Ello

What are some practices I miss after coming back home to Malaysia from Norway? I miss walking. So much of my life currently is confined to sitting around tables for meetings; siting in my office preparing for lectures; and sitting in the car (there's movement but not from my body). So it was nice to come across the following excerpt. Looks like I need to be more intentional to walk more.

> Jesus is walking ahead of us. He is always before us. He goes ahead of us and leads the way. . . . This is the source of our confidence and our joy: to be his disciples, to remain with him, to walk behind him, to follow him. . . .

[T]o walk is [. . .] an action, an action of Jesus that is ongoing: “Jesus was walking . . .” This is something striking about the Gospels: Jesus is often walking, and he teaches his disciples along the way. This is important. Jesus did not come to teach a philosophy, an ideology . . . but rather “a way,” a journey to be undertaken with him, and we learn the way as we go, by walking. Yes, [. . .] this is our joy: to walk with Jesus.

And this is not easy, or comfortable, because the way Jesus chooses is the way of the cross. As they journey together, he speaks to his disciples about what will happen in Jerusalem: he foretells his passion, death, and resurrection. And they are “shocked” and “full of fear.” They were shocked, certainly, because for them going up to Jerusalem meant sharing in the triumph of the Messiah, in his victory—we see this in the request made by James and John [to sit on either side of him in his kingdom]. But they were also full of fear for what was about to happen to Jesus, and for what they themselves might have to endure.

Unlike the disciples in those days, we know that Jesus has won, and that we need not fear the cross; indeed, the cross is our hope.